Hundreds of "Patch" editors who will run local news blogs to keep tabs on small suburban communities.

It's this last group of Patch editors that interests many of us the most. Two reasons:

These are those journalists who, by themselves, will try to replace the role newspapers played in local communities.

We're all excited to see how AOL will earn enough money through local advertising to actually pay fulltime journalists.

AOL is hungrily hiring more Patch editors every day. But right now, there are just 20. They are mostly fresh-faced recent college graduates with little or no experience. A few are long-time newspaper vets.